Mirai made
by kaliawai512
Summary: Tomorrow, Anzu will leave for America. But she has one last day to reflect, one last chance to say her farewells to her old world, and the people in it. And Yuugi isn't going to let her waste a moment. Post-canon. Non-romance.


**This might be referred to as sort of a "tie-in" between two of my other stories, and though one is referenced here, neither are needed to understand this: "Momoiro no Sora" and "Issho ni." It takes place around two years after canon's end, when both Yuugi and Anzu have graduated high school and college is literally just around the corner. There is no intended Peachshipping or Revolutionshipping, and as always, I wrote this with a non-romance intent. But if you want to read something into it, feel free.**

**For those of you who have read some of my other works, you may have noticed that I tend to include a Rubik's Cube as one of the games Yuugi is likely to enjoy. Partially, I got this idea from reading several fanfics, but I also got it from my younger brother, who at ten or eleven was solving Rubik's cubes in under a minute. He's fourteen now and still does them on occasion. In little ways, he kind of reminds me of Yuugi.**

**Oh, and a small request, due to a review I got for a recent story: if you have something you want to say to me, please, say it, good or bad. But **_**please **_**try to avoid using explicit language, especially in a story I've rated "K." I'm not bothered by it as much myself, but I would really like to keep things clean around my stories. Also, have I made it clear I write for the Japanese anime? If not, please say something …**

**For my next story, would you all prefer Kaiba brothers or Yuugi and Ryou?  
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**Finally, in case some of you didn't know, "Anzu" is one way of saying "Peach." "Mirai made" means "Until the Future." I hope you all enjoy. Review? Please? Pretty please with whipped cream, sugar, and cherries on top? And sprinkles?**

_Mirai made_

She had gotten a morning flight, as that was the only one available on the right date. Jounouchi had gawked when she showed him her ticket. He said it was more like a "bedtime" flight. Honda agreed. She had smacked them both upside the head and both of them had squealed like little kids.

But Yuugi had just smiled, something small and faint and real, and told her he was glad she had managed to find a safe ride.

She ran her fingers over the slip of paper. English letters, so much more familiar now that she could read them. She had taken to keeping the ticket in her pocket even now, as if she was afraid if she left it at home it might get thrown away or have coffee spilt on it, or it might just disappear.

The disappearing idea didn't even seem too far-fetched, and for that reason, she wondered one last time if she should tell someone about her tendency to accept such weird things as normal before her departure.

She decided it was best she didn't.

Anzu sighed and glanced around again at the buildings to each side her, and she cursed herself so very loudly, if only in her head, that she had decided not to write down the directions when he gave them to her over the phone. She had lived here all her life, and she couldn't even find a silly little coffee shop near the outskirts of the city.

Oh, yes. She was going to do just _wonderfully_ navigating New York.

She shuffled back and forth, wondering if maybe she should call him again, and then wondering if he actually kept his cell phone with him. He _had _one, as he had finally elected to buy one during summer break after freshman year if only to make sure they all stayed in touch, but both he and Honda had never really gotten used to carrying them around. Jounouchi did, but that was only so he could keep up with his sister on a regular basis, and he had a nasty habit of not remembering to return Anzu's calls.

It was already night—she had convinced her mother that she was eighteen now, almost nineteen, and where she would be going, that was the age that meant she could do what she pleased, including go out after dark. Her mother had crossed her arms and told her that here in Japan, the age of freedom was still twenty, and she was still underage.

But she had let Anzu go anyway, with the brush-off excuse that Anzu had already been to many places and done many things far before she was old enough, and this was a small favor in comparison.

She would have to remember to thank her mother when she got home.

Assuming she could even find the—

"Anzu!"

Anzu flicked her head back in the direction she had come.

She grinned, and she felt something deep inside her sigh in relief when she waved in return to the gentle smile that met her eyes in the distance.

"Yuugi!"

He sat back down in the small chair he had apparently long claimed as his own as she jogged back down the sidewalk toward that little coffee shop that had somehow evaded her. She managed to avoid blushing at how obvious it had all been. The little place squashed in between two taller buildings with small round tables scattered in front. And, of course, the boy with the multi-colored spiky hair that somehow didn't stand out as much as it once had.

She gave a nervous giggle and hung her purse on the back of the chair opposite him, slipping into her seat with another soft sigh.

"Sorry," she muttered. He still smiled. "I'm just so out of it, guess I didn't see you."

He folded his hands on the table and shook his head. "It's fine, don't worry. You're not late. I went ahead and ordered you something, though … hope that's oka—"

"Oh, of course, that's fine! Thanks."

She wished more than almost anything right now that she could reach out and kill the tense atmosphere surrounding them both. Yuugi had been so quiet lately, almost as much as he had been in the middle of second year. In a different way, though. Back then he had carried that sense of a plastered smile, a mask worn over a sad face. Now he was just silently content.

It was better than the mask. But she still didn't really like it.

He kept on smiling and looking at her for a moment before looking down at the table. She thought she could see him blushing, like he had those times so long ago when he would be caught in a conversation not knowing what to say. It used to happen all the time, and she would always smile and giggle at how childish he looked when it did.

He didn't do that anymore. And she guessed the blush was just a trick of the artificial bulbs on the porch roof that dangled above their heads.

"So, what'd you get me?"

Yuugi was silent for a moment, his eyes glazed over, staring at the table like there was actually something there to see. He looked up after a moment, and he blinked a few times when he found her staring at him. Suddenly that old face was gone, and the new, quiet strangeness had returned. She kept herself from sighing. He quirked his head.

"Hm?"

She leaned in. "For a drink?"

Yuugi shifted like someone had just snapped him out of a trance with a smack across the face. He blinked wide eyes.

"Oh! It's a surprise."

"A surprise?"

Anzu blinked back at him, but her movement was slower and as suspicious as one could get with such a simple facial movement. Yuugi fidgeted, and immediately forced his lips into a strange sort of grin.

"You'll like it, I swear!" His words were genuine, but that smile still was not. He rested his arms in front of him on the table. "I got myself something new, too, so if it's gross, I'll get us new drinks. Promise."

She looked at him for a moment longer. He kept up that smile that was not a real smile, his expression tinted with nervousness, and at last, she grinned in return. She shook her head, slow and definite, and she tried to offer some small amount of comfort through a motion she knew could not offer much.

"It's fine, Yuugi." She felt something in her relax when that nervous look on his face disappeared to make room for truer smile of his own. "You know me, so I'm sure it'll be delicious."

He looked at her across the table like a small child looking up at someone who had just done him a great kindness, or someone he was trying to reassure with the simple gleam of his eyes. He was nineteen now. He had grown, a good bit since they had started high school, but he was still on the short side, and he was still thin and looked almost frail. But he had retained that innocence that shone on his face. Innocence no one else she knew had been able to keep.

An innocence she knew she was not the only one who treasured.

Yuugi let out a long breath to break the silence.

"So, uh … Jounouchi-kun and Honda-kun and I planned something for tomorrow." She heard his chair rocking back and forth and his feet shuffling on the ground, and he glanced from side to side. "In the afternoon, so you can still get to sleep early for your flight."

Anzu perked up, and she leaned in to give him a curious look that seemed to bring more embarrassed anxiety to his face. He fidgeted. She grinned and leaned back in her seat.

"What is it?"

"Just lunch."

She raised her eyebrows, though she couldn't wipe that hint of a smile from her face. "Like that time you guys all took me out for my birthday?"

Yuugi waved his arms a little in front of him as if he was reliving the memories of Jounouchi and Honda gorging on disgusting sandwiches and waitresses gawking from afar, and it gave her some odd sense of peace to see him in that old, almost comfortable frantic state again. She used to see him like that more, back when Jounouchi or Honda would embarrass him in public and always do something, _anything,_ to mess with his head.

That had changed, though. He didn't wave his hands to defend his pride anymore. He just chuckled and smiled and brushed it away in good humor.

Not a bad response, she supposed. But it still didn't feel like _him._

"Nothing like that!" he almost shouted, and when a few of the neighboring patrons glanced over he quickly settled his hands in his lap and shifted his eyes before looking at her with that same uncertain smile. "It's _really_ fancy this time. I picked out the restaurant. Best reviews in Domino."

Anzu laid her arms on top of one another, leaned in, and smirked.

"Let me guess: you won't tell me what _that _is either, will you?"

Yuugi smiled, even though the smile was shy and just a little apologetic. "Sorry. That would spoil it."

She felt like throwing her head back and laughing. But she didn't, no matter what she wanted to do, and Yuugi kept up that cheerful expression even when she did nothing more than smile back at him. He quirked his head and fiddled with his thumbs.

"So, do you know where you'll be staying yet?"

"In the dorms. I hear they're a little cramped, but I've slept in a tent a few times, I don't think it'll be a problem."

Anzu stuck her tongue just past her lips, and Yuugi snickered in a way Anzu might have expected Jounouchi to do. It didn't particularly suit him, but if after all this time of being Jounouchi's best friend that was the _only _trait Yuugi had picked up from him, Anzu supposed she could just leave that one be.

Yuugi nodded, his snickers dying down, and he finally settled on just staring at his hands, a faint smile on his face, keeping up that nodding motion like he had forgotten he was making it.

"Good. Good …"

Silence fell over them. Anzu did not like silence. Normally she would have, and she always appreciated when people took a moment to just be quiet in the middle of a conversation. But this silence was dense and heavy, and it weighed down on her like a million blocks of stone like the blocks she had seen in the pyramids.

She swallowed, and she looked at Yuugi with a million things to say. She opened her mouth, running her tongue along her teeth.

"Here you are."

Anzu just about fell backward out of her seat.

The young waiter in an apron holding two covered white cups in his hand jumped when she did, his glasses falling down to the brim of his nose, though he didn't seem to notice. Anzu tried with all her might not to blush, and sat herself up properly before giving him a quick and exceedingly humiliated nod.

"Thanks."

He stared at her, glancing at Yuugi, who Anzu suspected was trying not to laugh. The young man looked back and forth between them, once, twice before finally setting the two cups down on the table, giving a curt bow, and scurrying off like they had just sprouted wings and started singing Broadway musicals.

Anzu would have to remind herself that if she ever came to this shop again, chances are the waiters would remember her.

She clutched the cool plastic cup in her hand and twirled it against her fingers, shaking it to hear the swoosh of the contents, feeling the chill of the liquid. She knew all the flavors sounded and felt the same, but even still, it made sense in her head.

She looked at Yuugi with a lowered brow. "So, will you tell me _now _what you got me?"

Yuugi grinned a grin that would have made her suspicious had anyone else made it. But on Yuugi, much like on an eight-year-old boy, it just looked excited.

"Try it."

Anzu looked at him. He didn't move or flinch. He just looked back at her, strangely eager, so much that she wondered if there was potion in the cup instead of some odd flavor of smoothie.

But after a moment, she sighed, put the bendy straw to her lips, and took a sip.

She swished the drink in her mouth and swallowed. It took her a second, and several blinks. She looked Yuugi straight in the eyes and quirked her brow.

"… peach?"

He leaned in a little on the table, and for a moment, she thought she saw the old Yuugi in that smiling face. Eager, curious, a little impatient. "What do you think?"

She was so stunned by his expression that it took her a moment and another sip of the drink to realize it. She looked at the drink, and she looked at Yuugi, and if possible, she would have looked at herself.

She quirked an eyebrow.

"Yuugi, that's just dumb!"

The words were tinted with laughter, however much she tried to hide it, and she twirled the drink as much as possible without dropping it. Yuugi leaned back in his chair so far that Anzu almost thought he would fall out of it before he settled himself. His smile faded, and he tilted his head with a furrowed brow.

"Don't you like peach?"

Anzu blinked at him, and looked at the drink again. She looked at Yuugi's genuinely puzzled face, and she wondered if she was really the only one of the two of them who had realized the fairly stupid play on words. She sighed after a moment, and when he leaned in a little closer she let herself smile even though the smile was small.

"Yes, Yuugi. Peach is great." She brought the straw to her lips and sipped again, and kept herself from sighing once more in relief when his smile returned. She met his eyes and fumbled around where she had hung her purse on the back of her chair. "Thank you. Here, let me get my …"

He held out a hand before she could even find her wallet in the collection of lip gloss she packed in there—she suspected her mother had been the one to stick in five extra tubes of it when she scarcely even used the stuff anymore, unless Jounouchi had snuck into her house and decided to prank her. Anzu stopped, replacing her hands in her lap, and blinked.

Yuugi smiled again. This time, the smile was different. Older than the smile before, but still more like the old Yuugi. It gave her some form of comfort, and she had almost forgotten what he was declining when he finally shook his head. "I'm buying. My treat."

"Yuugi …"

"Really." He kept on smiling, confident this time, even as she blinked at him and showed every bit of the hesitance she felt quite plainly on her face. She shifted, and he nodded, and she honestly couldn't tell if it was to her or himself. "It's a going away present, you shouldn't have to pay for it."

Anzu drew in a breath and at last smiled back. She rested her hands over one another, a little in formality, a little just out of habit. She quirked her head and let herself have a good long look at him. Seeing how he had grown—in demeanor and in height, though he still had yet to match her—and how he had remained the same.

Everything she had always liked about him, and a few things that were annoying and odd, but she was glad they hadn't changed.

She felt her eyes grow soft. "You know, I … I'm going to miss you guys, in America."

The pause was only a second long, but it was still a pause, and she felt it like a rock to the face.

"You'll have a great time there." Yuugi said it with such confidence, confidence that seemed familiar and new all at once. He smiled, but that smile had changed. He didn't fidget or squirm or glance away. He just looked at her and gave her that gentle grin, like a very old friend trying to comfort her—and she supposed he was. "You've been saving up for this, and now you're going! It's your dream, right?"

Anzu shifted and tried not to avert her eyes. "I'll come back and visit, whenever I can. We get a long break in the winter, I'll be home then."

Yuugi just kept that smile.

"I'm really happy for you, Anzu."

It hurt to look at him, more every second. For the first time she noticed that his drink still sat near the center of the table, not moved or touched since it had been set there by the young man. She wondered, in the back of her mind, what flavor it was, then gave herself a mental smack and just barely shook her head in disbelief of how silly she was becoming.

She looked straight into Yuugi's eyes, and he still smiled right back.

"Yuugi … I …"

"He'd be happy for you, too."

Something deep within her felt like it had just been flipped upside down and twisted around the blade of a knife. She resisted the strong urge to clutch her middle from the pain that resonated within. She wanted, in the back of her mind, to run, though she knew running was silly and would do absolutely no good. She stared at Yuugi, and she tried so hard not to show that turmoil within.

"Huh?"

Yuugi just smiled. That smile so gentle and peaceful, so tinted with a melancholy she wished so badly she could force away."He _is _happy for you."

She opened her mouth to speak, one of the million things that were going through her head. She opened her mouth and closed it several times in a row, trying each time but always failing before she could even figure out what she was going to say. She knew she was blushing, but she did not try to hide it, and for a long time, the two of them remained in the bustling quiet of the city.

Yuugi laughed a laugh that seemed more sad than amused, and for the first time he seemed genuinely uncomfortable. He moved back and forth in his seat, and for a long time he just stared at his hands and rubbed his thumbs back and forth over one another. "I know it's crazy, but I just sort of … _know. _He's happy you get to go to America."

Anzu waited for the sharp pain she knew she would feel deep within her chest. She had felt it so many dozens of times, even after all these months had passed, and she was used to it. But the pain did not come. Her chest just began to ache, a dull, strange sort of feeling, and she swallowed in an attempt to ignore it.

"… do you miss him, too?"

Yuugi looked at her, straight in the eyes, and for some reason that made the pain in her chest grow sharp again. No longer that old ache, an ache formed from all this time of feeling the same familiar pain. It hurt again, even when he smiled at her, with a smile that was somehow tremendously more tragic than tears.

"All the time."

There was such an innate hurt in those words that she almost wanted to get up from her seat, walk around the table, and hug him, even though she rarely did so, and she knew the looks they would get for such a public display. She almost didn't care. She almost pulled him into her grasp like he had done once for her when she fell down crying by a bench after _he _had left, and held him like he had held her, and spoken words that didn't really mean anything but felt good all the same.

The two of them, alone in a world full of people who smiled and nodded and _did not understand. _A world that would never understand, a world that could never even hear the truth.

Yuugi sighed, very gentle, very soft, and turned his eyes to gaze at her with a care that reminded her of every time he had tried to protect her.

"I know it's tough sometimes …"

"No, I shouldn't be acting like this." She squeezed her hands into fists, relaxed them, then back into fists again. She looked at him, and back at her hands, then up to the ceiling and the lights that dangled above. "You're the one who went through all that, and I'm just …"

"Anzu."

Anzu didn't look back at him at first. She just stayed staring at that light. It burned her eyes a little, but she stared at it with wonder as the bulb flickered every few seconds—cheap and old—and watched the moths and mosquitoes flock to the glow. She felt like a moth herself, drawn in, and for a moment she wished she could sprout wings and flutter up to the light bulb and just stay there, close to that miniature sun, never getting on that plane, never meeting her new life, never having to face it.

The instant she looked back, she found Yuugi shaking his head. "Anzu … that's not true."

"Yes, it is," she whispered, and she broke his gaze for a moment to look at the ground by her chair. She watched a few ants make their way by the legs of the table, and the changing lights of the city reflect on the concrete of the road.

She felt the table creak as Yuugi leaned forward on it, and though she still stared at the ground, she could sense him staring at her. Sense him shaking his head.

"No."

"It_ is_, Yuugi."

Anzu wanted to yell. She wanted to scream it to the skies so the whole world could hear. Hear that she was weak, she was pitiful, she couldn't even stand strong for one of her best friends in the world as he still faced the pain of the past every day of his life.

She shook her head, though she did not know what she was denying. "I went through all that and I didn't even understand what was going on up until the end."

"What do you mean?"

Yuugi looked up at her then, his eyes no longer pain-filled and concerned. This time, only curious. She knew she shouldn't have been frightened of his question, of his curiosity, but she couldn't hold back that fear. She breathed in and out, slow and deep, and she looked everywhere she could to avoid meeting his eyes again.

"I … didn't _get _it, not for a long time." She scrunched her forehead, and her eyes settled on the ground again like she suddenly found every crack in the concrete very interesting. The light played by her feet, and she tried to swallow all the emotion swirling around inside of her, burning, stinging, pressing at the seams of her being and working its way out. "All that time when he was here … for a long time I just thought …"

"It's okay, Anzu."

She did not look at him at first, but she heard his voice both confident and cracked at the same time. It made something deep within her ache, and she rubbed her wrists in an attempt to ward off the chill that had fallen over her despite the warmth of the evening.

Anzu bit the inside of her lip and squeezed her hands tight. "… I just thought he was … _you,_" she whispered, and the words both hurt and felt like a million blocks of stone had been lifted from her shoulders."I know he wasn't, I _know _he was Atem and not Yuugi but … I … I couldn't even get that. Not really. You were both just … _Yuugi._"

She wanted, at least somewhere deep within her mind, to close her eyes and squeeze them shut and pretend none of this was real. To pretend she was back home, to pretend that Millennium Items and games and tombs and smirking spirits had never existed. To pretend she was still the little girl who wasn't sure where she belonged and where she was going to go, and he was still the little boy who hid in the corner of the classroom at lunch, smiling at his Rubik's Cube and smiling at every bigger kid who came to hit him across the face.

The little boy with the big violet eyes that knew only innocence, who would never know darkness, and all the pain it could bring.

"I think you're right."

She shifted and swallowed when the words hit her, and she smiled a strange, almost sad, regretful smile as she shook her head and laughed in that quiet, dark way.

"Hm? Yeah, I was silly, and …"

"Not about that."

His words were surprisingly firm, and Anzu looked back to him out of sheer surprise that he had been almost forceful with his insistence, and yet gentle at the same time. It was not the sort of voice she would have expected from Yuugi, at least not now, and neither was the soft, solemn expression she found on his face when she turned her head to meet his eyes.

Yuugi shifted in his seat, but it seemed more a way to get comfortable instead of out of some nervous emotion.

"I think … he sort of _was _me, in a way," he muttered. He furrowed his brow, just a bit. "It's … hard to explain."

She wanted to say something. There were a million things she wished she could say. But as she opened her mouth, no words came to mind, no words came from her lips, so she closed them again, and a second later, he met her eyes.

"I talked to Bakura-kun, right after … _he _left," he whispered, and even though the chatter of the other patrons hadn't dropped in volume, she had no trouble making out what he said. "It was weird, for both of us. Different, of course, but … weird in the same way." Yuugi leaned back just enough to stare at the flickering lights over his head. She wanted to look up too, but she couldn't quite force herself to move. "He was … a part of me. For a long time, I just thought he was me, but … tougher, stronger."

Yuugi again found a more comfortable position in his chair within the pause, and Anzu noticed more than ever how cheap and uncomfortable these seats were. She wondered if maybe the two of them could go out sometime to a place with nicer chairs, nicer tables, somewhere everyone else wasn't blabbering so loudly. Have dinner, laugh, and talk.

She flinched when the images of it all flicked about her mind, and every time that Yuugi in her head looked at her, she saw _him, _no matter what she tried.

Yuugi let out a breath she almost thought was sad. But not quite.

"After a while, I knew he wasn't just my other personality. He was still _me, _sort of, but not. It wasn't until we found out his name that I started thinking about it, for real. He was someone else, and he had another life. Somewhere else he … was supposed to be."

Anzu nodded. Slow, real. Ache. "Yeah …"

Yuugi caught her gaze even as she started to look away, and he held it, strong and firm, and though the movement was slight, she could have sworn she saw a hint of a smile form on his face.

"But … it's like he still _is _me. A part of me. Like he's still ... here."

She blinked, and his smile grew. It wasn't a happy smile, at least not in the traditional sense. But it wasn't sad. It was just a smile. A smile that she sensed meant so much more than she could read or understand, something that would take a great deal longer for her to truly get.

He shook his head, back and forth, that smile never leaving his face. "I know it's weird, but … whenever something good happens, or when I grew two centimeters in one summer last year … I would just _feel _him there, watching. Like he was helping me along."

She opened her mouth. She closed it. She opened it again, even though her hands still fidgeted in her lap.

"You think he helped me get into dance school?"

Yuugi almost laughed. Anzu could see that bursting laughter building up within his chest and in his throat, but he forced it back, so it came out half a chuckle and half as a suppressed snort. "No, I think you did that one on your own," he muttered through his giggles.

Anzu smiled, and even she couldn't tell if her smile was sad or content, or a strange mixture of both. She leaned against her arms on the table, making it creak back and forth on its wobbly legs, and she stared at the boy across from her she had always thought she knew so well. And now, and for such a long time, she was growing less and less sure she did.

Yuugi forced the rest of his chuckles back and grinned, though it was small, and he clasped his hands together in front of his untouched drink.

"But he's here, all the time." His voice was gentle, full of a meaning even Anzu had never dared to expect from him, not after all the things in the past. He nodded, small, as he glanced to the ceiling, as if he was nodding to himself, or someone she could not see. "All the things we learned from him. And who we're going to be."

He looked at her, that smile still there, and for a long time, Anzu just stared back.

She looked at him, and she saw _him _looking back. She saw those wise eyes that weren't supposed to be so wise, all the things he knew but didn't yet understand. The dangerous bit that grew less dangerous every time she saw it. Kinder, calmer. Settling into the life they had to give.

And then she blinked again, and she saw those big violet eyes that had stared back at her for years in primary school, laughing together at lunch, solving pocket-size jigsaw puzzles and his vain attempts to teach her how a Rubik's Cube worked. The little boy that once understood so little, and now understood so much. The boy who grew up right before her eyes, and kept his smile through it all.

Mutou Yuugi. Her Yuugi. The Yuugi he had always been, and the Yuugi he was just starting to become.

Anzu pushed off on the table and stood on her feet, her legs a little numb from sitting but her feet practically buzzing. Her lips curled into a smile that she supposed held hints of a smirk, and that smile only grew when Yuugi blinked up at her in wonder and confusion.

"Hey. I bet the movie theater's still open." She leaned on her hands and let her smile turn childish and faintly new. "Want to go see what's out?"

Yuugi blinked again, and glanced from side to side before finally back to her.

"Don't you have to go home and pack?"

"I have all tomorrow night to pack," she insisted with a moment's pause, and for the first time in a while, giving a little white lie didn't hurt, perhaps because she thought this was worth being a bit untruthful. She grinned, full and true, and she leaned forward to make sure he looked her in the eye and saw the amused gleam on her face. "Besides, this is the last time in a while I get to see a movie that's not in English!"

Yuugi stared at her for a moment longer. He glanced at the table and stuck a hand in his pocket to pull out the rest of his yen notes and coins. He flicked his eyes over them and spread them out on the table.

"I've got a few bills left."

Anzu grinned when he looked up to meet her eyes again. "And I'll buy the popcorn."

Yuugi paused for a moment, running a finger over the bills and coins like he was contemplating something. He blinked twice, looked at Anzu, then back at the money, then back at her.

And at last, in a true motion Anzu had missed more than she could ever say, Yuugi smiled.

"Can I surprise you with the movie?"

Her lips curved up into a grin of her own, a grin that felt better than she had thought it could. "Not a chance."

Their unfinished smoothies wobbled back and forth when Anzu grabbed Yuugi's hand to pull him up from the table. She knew he blushed a little when she pulled him along, back onto the street and toward the theater some distance away, but she didn't look back, and she didn't care.

She felt the faint, never-fading warmth of his hand in hers, and she imagined, if only for a second, that they were small children once again. Small children running off to the park on Saturday afternoon, or two middle-schoolers not quite into high school, not quite into the days when every moment was filled with worry. Two old friends that could never be separated, no matter how far in distance they grew.

And in the back of her mind, Anzu almost thought she could feel the strong, confident grip of the ancient spirit hanging onto her hand in return, as they raced toward discovery and the future they could not understand.

Anzu looked toward the sky and toward the bright lights of the city as they ran toward their new lives, and though she did not look back, she could feel Yuugi smiling just like her.

Smiling like the little boy who would never, ever let go.


End file.
